Kenya Re Jumps to Three-Week High on Shariah Plan: Nairobi Mover

Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Kenya Reinsurance Corp., a state-owned reinsurer, jumped to its highest level in more than three
weeks after saying it introduced a Shariah-compliance team to
evaluate new products and investments.

Kenya Re, as the company is known, climbed 2 percent to
10.45 shillings by the close in Nairobi, the strongest price
since July 11.

The board’s role is to “evaluate all our business and
ensure that we are Shariah-compliant,” Managing Director Jadiah
Mwarania said in a phone interview today. “It will also
evaluate our investments and ensure they are complaint to
Islamic guidelines.”

In June the company announced plans to tap into the
expanding Islamic-finance industry in Africa and the Middle
East. The company will also venture into micro-insurance and
political-risk insurance, Mwarania said June 13.

The plan to introduce Shariah-compliant products “widens
their income streams; investors must have taken that
positively,” Brenda Kithinji, a research analyst at Nairobi-based Standard Investment Bank Ltd. said in a phone interview
today.